Pagan and Christian Creeds [43]
him, then (as I have also said) it was perfectly natural for him to take some animal which bulked large on his horizon-- some food-animal for instance--and to pay respect to it as the benefactor of his tribe, its far-back ancestor and totem-symbol; or, seeing the boundless blessing of the cornfields, to believe in some kind of spirit of the corn (not exactly a god but rather a magical ghost) which, reincarnated every year, sprang up to save mankind from famine. But then no sooner had he done this than he was bound to perceive that in cutting down the corn or in eating his totem-bear or kangaroo he was slaying his own best self and benefactor. In that instant the consciousness of DISUNITY, the sense of sin in some undefined yet no less disturbing and alarming form would come in. If, before, his ritual magic had been concentrated on the simple purpose of multiplying the animal or, vegetable forms of his food, now in addition his magical endeavor would be turned to averting the just wrath of the spirits who animated these forms--just indeed, for the rudest savage would perceive the wrong done and the probability of its retribution. Clearly the wrong done could only be expiated by an equivalent sacrifice of some kind on the part of the man, or the tribe--that is by the offering to the totem- animal or to the corn-spirit of some victim whom these nature powers in their turn could feed upon and assimilate. In this way the nature-powers would be appeased, the sense of unity would be restored, and the first At-one-ment effected.
It is hardly necessary to recite in any detail the cruel and hideous sacrifices which have been perpetrated in this sense all over the world, sometimes in appeasement of a wrong committed or supposed to have been committed by the tribe or some member of it, sometimes in placation or for the averting of death, or defeat, or plague, sometimes merely in fulfilment of some long-standing custom of forgotten origin--the flayings and floggings and burnings and crucifixions of victims without end, carried out in all deliberation and solemnity of established ritual. I have mentioned some cases connected with the sowing of the corn. The Bible is full of such things, from the intended sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham, to the actual crucifixion of Jesus by the Jews. The first- born sons were claimed by a god who called himself "jealous" and were only to be redeemed by a substitute.[1] Of the Canaanites it was said that "even their daughters they have BURNT in the fire to their gods";[2] and of the King of Moab, that when he saw his army in danger of defeat, "he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him for a burnt-offering on the wall!"[3] Dr. Frazer[4] mentions the similar case of the Carthaginians (about B.C. 300) sacrificing two hundred children of good family as a propitiation to Baal and to save their beloved city from the assaults of the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles. And even so we hear that on that occasion three hundred more young folk VOLUNTEERED to die for the fatherland.
[1] Exodus xxxiv. 20.
[2] Deut. xii. 31.
[3] 2 Kings iii. 27.
[4] The Golden Bough, vol. "The Dying God," p. 167.
The awful sacrifices made by the Aztecs in Mexico to their gods Huitzilopochtli, Texcatlipoca, and others are described in much detail by Sahagun, the Spanish missionary of the sixteenth century. The victims were mostly prisoners of war or young children; they were numbered by thousands. In one case Sahagun describes the huge Idol or figure of the god as largely plated with gold and holding his hands palm upward and in a downward sloping position over a cauldron or furnace placed below. The children, who had previously been borne in triumphal state on litters over the crowd and decorated with every ornamental device of feathers and flowers and wings, were placed one by one on the vast hands and ROLLED DOWN into the flames--as if the god were himself offering them.[1] As the procession approached the temple, the members of it wept and danced and sang, and here again the
It is hardly necessary to recite in any detail the cruel and hideous sacrifices which have been perpetrated in this sense all over the world, sometimes in appeasement of a wrong committed or supposed to have been committed by the tribe or some member of it, sometimes in placation or for the averting of death, or defeat, or plague, sometimes merely in fulfilment of some long-standing custom of forgotten origin--the flayings and floggings and burnings and crucifixions of victims without end, carried out in all deliberation and solemnity of established ritual. I have mentioned some cases connected with the sowing of the corn. The Bible is full of such things, from the intended sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham, to the actual crucifixion of Jesus by the Jews. The first- born sons were claimed by a god who called himself "jealous" and were only to be redeemed by a substitute.[1] Of the Canaanites it was said that "even their daughters they have BURNT in the fire to their gods";[2] and of the King of Moab, that when he saw his army in danger of defeat, "he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him for a burnt-offering on the wall!"[3] Dr. Frazer[4] mentions the similar case of the Carthaginians (about B.C. 300) sacrificing two hundred children of good family as a propitiation to Baal and to save their beloved city from the assaults of the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles. And even so we hear that on that occasion three hundred more young folk VOLUNTEERED to die for the fatherland.
[1] Exodus xxxiv. 20.
[2] Deut. xii. 31.
[3] 2 Kings iii. 27.
[4] The Golden Bough, vol. "The Dying God," p. 167.
The awful sacrifices made by the Aztecs in Mexico to their gods Huitzilopochtli, Texcatlipoca, and others are described in much detail by Sahagun, the Spanish missionary of the sixteenth century. The victims were mostly prisoners of war or young children; they were numbered by thousands. In one case Sahagun describes the huge Idol or figure of the god as largely plated with gold and holding his hands palm upward and in a downward sloping position over a cauldron or furnace placed below. The children, who had previously been borne in triumphal state on litters over the crowd and decorated with every ornamental device of feathers and flowers and wings, were placed one by one on the vast hands and ROLLED DOWN into the flames--as if the god were himself offering them.[1] As the procession approached the temple, the members of it wept and danced and sang, and here again the